


Your Move

by delighted



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Coda, Episode Related, M/M, Missing Scene, S8E9, Steve has some really weird ideas about what's romantic, Tani is awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-03 03:06:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13332168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delighted/pseuds/delighted
Summary: While they’re in quarantine, Tani tries to convince Steve it’s time he tells Danny how he feels about him. It takes Steve a while to find the perfect way to do it.





	Your Move

**Author's Note:**

> Someone suggested to me that the entirety of episode nine came to be because the writers wanted Tani to say “Can you please just make your move?” to Steve. I can’t really argue with that... and of course I needed to write about it. I really don’t know what got into me with this one, but I blame the show.
> 
> This _can_ be read as a follow up to [“Something The New Girl Said”](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12246876).... it doesn’t have to be, but it could. 
> 
> For the purposes of this story, please disregard episode ten. (I’ve got another story for that one on Friday.)

Steve was sitting with Tani, ostensibly playing chess, but really his mind was in the other room. In the room where Danny was talking on the phone with Grace. In the room where they were all sleeping now, sleeping _for_ now, while they healed, while the period of possible contagion passed. In the room where _Danny_....

Tani cleared her throat, an effort he knew, to get him to either focus on the game or talk to her about the subject of his distraction.

She’d known. Pretty much right from the beginning, she’d known. What’s more—because probably the guys knew as well, they just didn’t say anything—but what’s more, Tani’d come directly to the point with Steve about it. He’d been so caught off guard, he hadn’t denied it. He might have admitted it, without really admitting it... or maybe he’d straight up said, yes, I’m in love with Danny, but what the hell am I supposed to do about it... or something like that. Maybe. Or maybe she’d just known.

She’d pushed him a few times since then, attempted to egg him on, encourage him. He always dismissed it. Said Danny’d come to it himself when the time was right. He didn’t want to push, wanted—maybe _needed_ —for it to be Danny who said it, Danny who made the move, Danny who led them down that path. Their being together, if it was ever to happen, could not, could absolutely _not_ be one more thing that Danny could accuse Steve of pushing, of bullying, of forcing him into.

Tani didn’t seem to agree.

Tani also, evidently, seemed to think that now, after the chaos of the past few days, after their near-death experiences on the boat... that _now_ somehow was the optimum time to confess one’s undying love for one’s best friend and partner.

Steve wasn’t so sure.

“What if it happens again. What if between now and then is the only time you have? Wouldn’t you regret not saying anything?” She’d evidently grown tired of waiting for him to bring up the topic, and for the fourteenth time since they’d been in quarantine was going to push him. Again.

Steve rubbed his face in his hands. Sighed. Gave in. “I already did.”

“Did what?”

“Regret. Not having said anything.”

She looked at him, her normally sharp gaze softened. “On the boat?”

“It was all I could think of. I could barely function, could barely think what to do to keep us afloat.” Steve leaned in, the weight of those feelings pressing down on him—then as now he hadn’t entirely been sure if the muscle weakness he’d felt had been from the virus or his suppressed feelings. “All I could think was _we’re going to die, and I haven’t told Danny how I feel_.”

Tani frowned at him. “So why won’t you tell him now?”

Steve swallowed. Met her eyes. He’d been making himself sick over it since it had happened. There wasn’t anyone else he could tell... and, well, she was only going to keep pushing. So, he took a deep breath and said it out loud. “I think I stopped him from telling me.”

She didn’t respond, not right away, and he was grateful for that. Her lips pressed together hard, her chin went up, and slowly she took a breath. Still she said nothing. But she looked at him, eyebrows up, waiting.

“On the boat. He’d been drinking the champagne. It goes right to his head, especially sitting in the sun.... He started telling me he’d been thinking, that he wanted to say something, and I just... I couldn’t hear it, you know? Not then, not when we thought we weren’t gonna make it. He’d given up, and he was finally gonna say it, and I couldn’t let him. So I shut him down, like I always do, when we’re close to death and he tries to talk to me about his feelings.”

He’d half expected her to press him on that, that it had happened before, but she just nodded as though somehow she knew.

“He wound up telling me he was thinking about the restaurant, but I knew he was covering. How do I tell him now? When I couldn’t then? When I wouldn’t let _him_ tell _me_.”

She sighed. “I think I get that. It would have been too painful to admit it then, to know there was nothing for it. But now there _is_. Now you can have some time. Just... don’t let it get to that point again. Because then you really will regret it.”

He knew she was right. He just didn’t have the slightest idea how or when. Certainly not while they were all locked in this place together.

Almost as though he suspected he’d been the topic of conversation, Danny emerged from the sleeping quarters just then, and either to cover their conversation or to prod Steve, Tani said, much louder than she needed to have:

“Can you please just make your move?”

Steve glared at her. She just grinned bigger, and kicked his leg under the table.

Falling into the comfort of arguing with Danny, once Tani left the room (leaving him with a meaningful look as she put her headphones on, as though to say _see, I can’t hear you_ ), Steve thought for one moment he might just say it right then, before he could think any more about it. But he couldn’t. Not here, not like this. If he was going to do it, it was going to have to be _perfect_.

Steve spent the rest of their time in quarantine thinking about how he’d finally do it. Tani kept teasing him, goading him, any time they had a moment alone, and sometimes when they didn’t. She was quite skilled at the art of the not-very-subtle-at-all jab, innuendo, double entendre. Steve panicked a couple times when he thought surely Junior and Danny would catch on, but they somehow both seemed to stay blissfully unaware.

He developed a bruise on his shin from Tani kicking him each time Danny walked into the room. Steve settled for angry glares back at her, trying to be the bigger person and all. But she only laughed at him, and kicked him again.

“I’m beginning to regret hiring you,” he whispered under his breath after an especially hard kick.

“No, you’re not,” she replied around a huge grin. “You’d be lost without me.”

“I’d certainly be less sore,” he muttered.

“Quit being a child and figure it out.” She kicked him again, but more gently.

“Yes ma’am.” He couldn’t resist smiling back at her. He wouldn’t let her know it, but he was actually really grateful for her right now. At least someone else knew he was a ridiculous mess of unexpressed feelings.

But Steve couldn’t figure it out. He just couldn’t come up with anything that was good enough, perfect enough, for that moment when he would finally tell Danny how he felt.

Unfortunately, quarantine didn’t last forever. Before he knew it, they’d been back at work for a week. A long and incredibly painful week. Tani’d taken to punching him in the arm. _Hard_.

“You know, pain doesn’t actually make deciding things easier,” he whined, on Friday, as she apparently decided he needed an extra punch to get him through the weekend.

“Sure it does,” she hissed under her breath as she tried to nod him in Danny’s direction. “Stop trying to find the perfect time and just _tell him_.”

Steve knew she was right; he was using his need for perfection to hold back from telling Danny at all. He realized that. Still, he couldn’t quite seem to figure out how to do it. The time never felt right. And he’d had a number of opportunities. Calm quiet moments where it was just them. Once the first time they went surfing after getting out of the hospital. Once while they were grilling some fish at Danny’s, the kids jumping on the trampoline in the yard. Once when the two of them were sitting, far too close as they usually did, watching a movie that wound up being far more romantic than either of them had been aware of.

But none of those times were _right_.

So Steve got Tani to start punching him on the other arm, and he started thinking about getting body armor for daily use.

And then one day, a couple of weeks later, they were on a case, and about to do a raid of a suspected bomb factory. Steve was about to break down the door, when he stopped and turned to Danny.

“Danny. I need to tell you something.”

“Okay, babe, let’s get this done and then you can.” He was distracted, looking behind them, making sure they hadn’t been spotted.

“No, I mean, I need to tell you right now.” Steve pulled Danny closer, whispering intently, while completely disregarding their situation.

“Okay, but hurry up, babe,” Danny took a step back to balance himself. “That thing could blow at any moment.”

“I think we should get married.”

Well... _that_ hadn’t been what he’d imagined saying. Figured he’d ask Danny on a date—seemed like a good way to start. But... go big or go home, I guess.

Danny’s mouth dropped open. “Please tell me you are kidding me right now. We’re about to break down a door to a warehouse that’s probably rigged to explode, and you pick now to propose to me?”

“Just...” Steve glanced around them. “If we make it through this, promise me you’ll think about it.”

Danny moved that one step back closer to Steve, and another, so he was right almost up against his chest. He put a hand out to Steve’s vest. “Okay, now you’re freaking me out.”

“Please?” It was quiet, and pleading. Insistent.

“Yes, alright. _Jesus_. Yes.”

“Yes, what? You’ll think about it? Or yes, _yes_.”

Danny flailed about, waving his gun carelessly. “I don’t know! _Yes_ yes.”

Steve had been about to grab Danny’s gun, but he stopped short. Stood straighter. “Really?”

“ _Steven_.” Danny was hissing under his breath, because they were supposedly being stealthy, but Steve could tell he would otherwise be yelling. “Now is _really not_ the time for this conversation.”

“But you’d marry me?” He couldn’t help it. He was grinning hugely.

Danny sighed. “Yes, you idiot. Of course I would. Can we _please_ finish this now?”

“Okay,” Steve turned serious again, and swung back around to face the door. Over his shoulder he whispered: “But then I am going to kiss you.”

“I should hope so. Now please, let’s _go_.”

And they did, and they made it through, they got past danger once more, and as they emerged, all covered in exploded bits of building, ears ringing from the blast, but everyone safe, everything secure, Steve walked up to Danny, who was wiping his face on his sleeve, making the mess worse rather than better, and he grabbed him by the arms, and pulled him into a crushing kiss.

Tani was the first to react with an excited yelp, Junior just stood there with his mouth open, and Lou shook his head and probably muttered something about “It’s about goddamn time.”

Steve wasn’t really sure what happened after that because then Danny kissed him back and his whole world collapsed in on the point of contact, everything else swirling around them like the debris from the explosion.

After not nearly enough time, Danny pulled back, pushing Steve firmly on his chest, moving back just enough to look into his eyes, like he was searching for something.

“Hey.” Steve grinned sheepishly.

“ _Hi_. So. What was that all about, babe, huh?”

When Steve stammered in response, Danny slung an arm around him and took him back behind the truck so they could have some privacy while Lou and Tani took care of things at the scene. They sat on the lowered tailgate and Danny turned to face Steve, keeping a hand on his arm as though he were afraid he might startle.

“Come on, babe. What’s going on?”

Ordinarily, Steve might have feigned incomprehension, but his bruises from Tani’s _encouragement_ held him back from that. Which was probably a good thing, because Danny probably would have punched him in exactly the same spot if he’d tried. No point dissembling now anyway; he’d kind of started at the end point, so he may as well just get right to it.

“I stopped you from telling me. On the boat.”

Danny huffed out a soft, bitter breath. “Yeah, you did.”

“I’m sorry.”

Danny shrugged. “What would we have done, babe? Made the most of our dying breaths? We were too sick to do anything. I was just tired of ignoring it, I think. It takes so much energy to constantly pretend I don’t feel the way I do.”

Steve bit his lips together. “We’re getting old, huh?”

Danny chuckled. “Yeah, we are, babe.”

“Is that why you agreed to it? Or were you just placating me before I did something stupid?”

He moved closer. “Babe. I wasn’t placating you. And I wasn’t giving in because I’m tired.”

“I’ve had this thing... I never wanted to be the one to say anything, because I never wanted you to be able to blame me for us getting together... if things went wrong.” He sighed. “I didn’t want you to say I bullied you into it. But that’s basically what I did.”

Danny dropped his hand from Steve’s arm, rubbed his face with his hands. “Babe, that _isn’t_ what you did. Look, we’re old, we’re tired, we’ve been through hell more than once. And we’ve both been idiots about how we feel about each other.” As though guessing the loss of contact hadn’t been going well in Steve’s head, which was absolutely the truth, Danny grabbed Steve’s hand with both of his and squeezed it hard. “I don’t think that us getting together was ever going to be something that would go smoothly. That just wouldn’t be _us_.”

Steve laughed, a broken, half-laugh.

“Look. It doesn’t matter how it happened, what matters is what we do now.”

Nodding, Steve tried to settle himself, moved closer to Danny, brought his other hand to hold Danny’s, lowered them to rest on his leg. “Okay. Tell me. What do we do?”

“Well, I think some dating is probably a better first step than a wedding....”

“Yeah. Sorry about that. It... it _wasn’t_ what I had planned to say. It just kind of came out. I’m not sure why.”

“Well, it was probably the craziest proposal ever, but actually surprisingly fitting for you.”

Steve grinned. “Yeah. Somehow it did seem... kind of perfect.”

Danny shook his head, but he was smiling. “I don’t need it, though, you know. It’s not what really matters to me.”

Steve bit his lip. He hadn’t really thought of it before, when he’d been concerned with Danny’s reaction, Danny’s feelings, Danny’s issues—about relationships and about marriage, as well. But the thing was, Steve had his own issues about marriage. He’d just not really thought about that... until he’d said it.

“I think it might matter, to me. I think that might be why I said it.”

Danny nodded, almost as though he’d guessed that. “Makes sense, babe.”

“Would you really, would you be okay with it? If... if that’s what I need?”

Danny leaned in. Kissed him. Lightly, softly, lingeringly. And right on his lips, he whispered. “No question.”

Steve had to swallow back tears, but he kind of failed.

“And I would never blame you, for us being together.” Danny was still close, still whispering. Steve felt like Danny’d reached inside his deepest depths and found his biggest fears, and was addressing them directly. “I mean, yeah, I’d probably joke about it. But I would _never_ really mean it.... And what do you mean about things going wrong, Steven, huh? We’ve had enough things go wrong to know _we survive it_. You can’t think, at this point, that there’s anything that could break us? Not when we’re together.”

Steve breathed out a soft chuckle, tumbling over a sob, and choked on it. He pulled Danny closer, into an awkward hug.

“I am so sorry it took us so long to get here.”

“Me, too, babe. But maybe it’s what we needed. I mean, the fact that we didn’t even kiss until after you’d admitted you wanted to get married... that tells us something, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess it does.”

“Can we please go shower now, though? I’d really like to kiss you more, but I want to be clean first.”

“Do you think... Do you think you could drive?”

Danny’s head tilted, he blinked a few times. “Sure, babe. Of course.” He paused. “Why?”

“I kind of don’t trust myself right now, I think I just need to be able to sit here and look at you.”

“Babe, you do that half the time while you’re driving anyway, you do know that, right?”

Steve laughed. “Yeah, I guess I do, don’t I?”

Danny took a deep, long breath. “Yeah. But I kind of don’t mind.”

**Author's Note:**

> Danny's POV of this: [“Champagne and Sunshine”](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13502744).


End file.
